The Waiting Room
by Grammar Defender
Summary: What went on in the Waiting Room, that time Sticky Washington got sent there? This is what.


Author's Note-Second piece of work. Sticky's not exactly my favourite character, but I thought I owed him a bit of glory. Just a little monologue about his woes in the Waiting Room. I hope he's in character. If he's not, please tell me. I need to know. This starts right when Sticky is told he is to go to the Waiting Room (Book 1, Caught in the Act). Enjoy!

Disclaimer-I don't own MBS.

~The Waiting Room~

"Stand _up_," Jillson snarled at me. I stood, shivering uncontrollably with fright. My eyes wide, I felt my hand jerk sharply toward my glasses, but Jillson swatted it away. I had only time to see the horrified expressions of my three friends before she grabbed my arm with a hand like a drill press and led me through the door. I cringed as I heard boos and jeers of the other students that exploded out of the room I had just vacated.

I managed to supress a whimper of fright as we burst into the bright, sunlit courtyard. Jillson took a blindfold out of her sash and tied it tightly, obfuscating my gaze. She began to spin me, faster and faster until I was absolutely disorientated. Whatever the Waiting Room was, it couldn't be worse than here. Executives, students, and Recruiters laughed at my plight as I got dizzier and dizzier, and even through the blindfold the sun hurt my eyes. Jillson _still_ didn't stop spinning me, and after what seemed like an hour but was only in truth two minutes, my lunch came up. Jillson stopped spinning me and, I presume, stepped away as I gagged and spluttered. She gave a loud laugh.

"You! Helper! Clean this up!" Jillson roared as she grabbed my arm and began to walk me away from the mess and towards the Waiting Room. I gulped.

We walked for a short time, me jogging and stumbling, desperately trying to keep up with Jillson's huge strides. Eventually, I heard a slight _thunk! _and we stepped into a building. We walked down the hall for a minute or two.

Eventually, we stopped. As we did, a truly horrible smell filled my nose and I nearly regurgitated again. It smelled like dead, rotted meat or something. Like paper mill, caulk, rotten eggs, spoiled milk, skunk, week-old roadkill that's been baking in the sun, and all the other bad things I'd ever smelled in my life combined. It was terrible.

"Like it?" Jillson asked. "It's your first breath of the Waiting Room." And with that, she shoved me down a ramp. It was very slippery, and I ended up sliding down feet-first on my back through what I could only assume was mud. The smell coming from it was almost overpowering.

My feet struck an obstacle-hard. My right ankle felt like it might be sprained; it erupted in fire. Jillson clomped down the ramp after me in what sounded like boots, laughing uproariously. Even louder than her laughter, though, came the sounds of buzzing, clicking, and a small, high-pitched whine coming through the door which I had hit.

Jillson swung me upside-down by my hurt foot, chortling when I yelled in pain. With her free hand, she opened the door and bodily threw me into the Waiting Room. I landed in a heap in a floor of oozing, stinking mud. I sat up as quickly as I could manage, gagging slightly.

"See you, squirt!" Jillson called happily. I heard the door close, the locks click, and the room went pitch black.

By the time that I got my blindfold off, several long minutes had elapsed; the blindfold (not to mention my hands) was slippery with mud. I screamed as a large insect dive-bombed my head. It flew away unscathed, even though I had made a grab for it. Another bug scuttled across my hand, and I jerked away. I stood up and looked around. My eyes might have been closed, for all the good they did me. My hands moved to the polishing cloth, but I stopped them. It would be silly to polish my glasses-my cloth was so muddy that it would only dirty them. Besides, cleaning my spectacles wouldn't help me see, not in this darkness. I sat down heavily, sinking inches into the horrible mud.

Why had I let this happen? I had let down my friends, and now our mission was doomed. Mr. Curtain would take over the world and it would be my, Sticky's, fault. I began to sob, breathing through my mouth so that I didn't have to smell the awful glop I was sitting in. A bug flew down my throat. I coughed, trying to expel the intruder. I wondered, as a sort of aside, what kind it was.

It could have been a _Musa domestica, _or perhaps a _Phaenicia _species_, _or maybe even a _Metasyrphus americanus_. Still crying and trying not to breath, I began listing all the possibilities that I could think of for bugs that could fly into my mouth. When I had finished with those, I listed all the bugs I could think of.

Once I had finished those, I was still crying. _I must be getting dehydrated, _I thought. I inhaled deeply through my nose, and nearly passed out from the foul odour. Choking at the smell, I turned my attention to my ankle. It wasn't sprained, I decided. Just twisted. It still hurt, but it wouldn't hurt for long, nor would it prevent me from walking.

How long were they going to make me wait in this pit of horrors? I had finally stopped bawling, but that was little consolation. Ruefully, I thought back to the sunny courtyard. Being spun around by the sadistic Executive until I had barfed seemed so pleasant now, in comparison to my present situation.

I lamented again my idiocy. Why couldn't I have been more subtle? I was such an idiot! And why couldn't _I_ have been the one to sit in front of Kate? Reynie was much better at such things. _He _wouldn't have gotten caught. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and I was the weakest link. No one wanted me in the Society. Tears sprang afresh to my eyes. I was sitting in the Waiting Room, with my friends in possible danger and me about to meet an evil madman, sinking into a pile of stinking, oozing mud while bugs crawled over me and I was racked with sobs of anguish and shudders of fear and repulsion.

It seemed like days had gone by when the executives finally came to take me. A beam of light so bright that I shielded my eyes from the glare cut through the cursed dark. I felt a rope tighten around my middle, and I was dragged out of the Waiting Room. An Executive-Jillson, I think-blindfolded me again, while she wrinkled her nose in disgust at the smell of the room.

We walked up the ramp, Jillson half dragging me with the rope. I stumbled along. Time seemed to jump by, and in no time we stood at the entrance to our wing. She untied me, and then gave me a shove towards my room. I stumbled forward. I walked to the room in a sort of waking nightmare, still covered in the mud.

When I went in, Reynie ran forwards and hugged me, regardless of the mud.

"You're out!" he shouted in my ear. I made no response, only set my glasses on the table and walked out. I thought I heard Reynie following me, but it could've been the echo of those creepy crawly horrors ringing in my ears.

I headed to the showers, where I tuned on the water.

"I've brought you some soap, Sticky. And a towel and clean clothes." It was Reynie. So he _had _followed me. I still didn't respond, terrified that I'd start crying again. "Hey, get undressed and use this soap, okay?" I nodded, taking the soap from him with trembling hands. I heard him leave. I began to furiously scrub myself with the bar of soap. I cleaned myself until I practically shone, until the soap was nothing but a sliver. Slipping into my clean clothes, I trudged to my room.

Reynie stood there, an expression of great anxiety on his face. "Sticky, what happened?" he cried when he saw me. I made no reply, wishing that he would go away and leave me to be miserable in peace. "You have to talk to me, Sticky! I'm afraid that something terrible has happened to you. Not just the waiting room, I mean. Something even worse!"

I stared at him icily. "I don't suppose there's anything worse than that place. What would _you_ know about it." I saw hope flickering in his eyes, and in the moment before I turned away to my suitcase, I felt hope sprout in me too, putting out leafy tendrils and tender shoots, spreading its roots into my heart. Maybe, just maybe, I was wanted after all.

Author's note- That was fun to write! Sorry if there were any tense errors. I was really tired when I wrote this, and my original idea was in one tense, while my writing was in another. I just hope that it's good. Thanks for reading, and please review.

~Grammar Defender~


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